CHAPTER

8

They could have been ready to go within a day, but to his credit Chaloni was taking no chances. For one thing, certain special appurtenances had to be acquired and prepared. Furthermore, all such acquisitions had to be made in Cormandeer, Visaria’s second-largest city. It wouldn’t do, Chaloni explained, to buy anything locally because that would make their purchases too easy to trace. Passing themselves off as a married couple, he and Zezula undertook the journey. They made the buys via crypted electronic transfer from independent sources so that there was no face-to-face, and, when they were ready, brought them back.

That was when the real preparations and rehearsal began. Though Chaloni was upbeat throughout, particularizing instructions and assigning individual tasks, the strain eventually began to show. Not because he was having second thoughts as to the nature of the plan or its chances of success, but because with each passing hour the likelihood of someone getting cold feet and backing out grew in proportion to their competence.

Four days later, everything was in place and ready to go. With final preparations complete Chaloni went over each individual’s tasks, assuring him of his confidence in them, and reminding them of what was at stake.

“More cred than you’ve seen in your whole life,” he was telling Subar. “More cred, maybe, than you’ll need for a long time. Than any of us will need.” Reaching out, he put a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder and squeezed firmly. “I know you can do your part. You’re the youngest, but you’re as smart as any of us, and just as tough.”

Whether it was a bold-faced tall tale or not, it had the intended effect. Subar was juiced. The adren was flowing in all of them to the point that successful completion of the scheme had become its own reward and making off with the goods almost secondary.

The building that housed Goalaa Endeavors was one among dozens of similar nondescript storage facilities that occupied block after industrial block on the outskirts of Malandere’s vast shuttleport. At two in the morning, the locale was devoid of commercial traffic. Diurnal haze had morphed into the nocturnal fog that drifted in nightly off the nearby sea. There were no moons out, both of them having sunk hours ago below the murk-laden horizon. For what Chaloni and his friends had in mind, it was a night made to order.

Alone, Subar approached the west side of the building. He did not mind being alone because he usually was, and according to Chaloni’s plan so was nearly everyone else. His situation was no more sanguine than that of Sallow Behdul, or Zezula, or Chaloni himself. That did not mean uneasiness was absent. But there was nothing for it but to head in when his chrono told him it was time to move. The consequences of abandoning his companions now, at this critical juncture, would be as dire as anything that could happen to him inside the building.

Assuming he could get inside.

It was dead quiet on the service street that separated the Goalaa warehouse from the storage facility opposite. There were no transports in the corridors, no skimmers plying the air routes overhead. They had the lateness of the hour to thank for that. Clad in the negsuit Chaloni had purchased for him, Subar hurried across the street to the truck-sized plastic container positioned up against the wall of the building. While all commercial refuse was properly incinerated and compacted on site, the resultant powdery material still had some recyclable value. Whenever it had filled to a certain prespecified level, the storage bin would notify its contracted automated pickup vehicle that the time had come for emptying.

Reaching the bright orange container, he nearly jumped out of his snug-fitting new neg when a pair of xuelms went whirling past. Mottled gray to blend in with the night, the nocturnal carnivores came rolling and bouncing down the street, their several dozen finger-length feelers fully extended, their eyes tightly shut against contact with the pavement. If a feeler contacted something warm and alive, the xuelms would instantly uncoil from their spherical form to envelop and devour it. By trolling parallel to each another, they could cover more of the street than by hunting individually.

Out on the plains of Visaria it was not uncommon to encounter packs of a dozen or more, rolling swiftly onward, sweeping a chosen stretch of veldt in a long, straight line. Keeping mostly to its less developed, less populated outskirts, some had moved into and thrived within the city, tolerated or ignored by its population. Unable to assemble in full packs, which drew serious attention from the authorities, a couple of hunting xuelms were no danger to anyone over the age of ten. Each about a third of a meter in diameter, this pair was no threat to Subar. Though they had startled him, they angled to their left to keep well away from the young human, who was more of a danger to them than they were to him.

Angry for allowing himself to be surprised by lowly xuelms, Subar turned back to the smooth-faced catchment and began to climb, using the activated suction pads attached to his hands and knees. As long as their storage power lasted, he could ascend a wall of vertical glass. The plastic body of the container provided a much firmer purchase. He went right up and over without being observed.

Safely on top, he withdrew the special mask from his small waist pack and slipped it over his nose and mouth. Goggles protected his eyes. Contact with the compacted refuse was unlikely to be harmful, but breathing in fine particles that might contain all manner of powdered toxic metals and other poisonous elements was not advisable. The check port was sealed, but breaking and entering were among the most basic survival techniques that he and his friends had mastered. A few practiced applications of several appropriate tools, and he was in.

He dropped knee-deep into fine, grayish white powder. It puffed up like talc around him, but his mask and goggles prevented it from entering his body. A quick search located the dump chute that fed the refuse container. Switching on his goggles, he entered the pitch-black conduit and started crawling.

It ascended at a steep angle that presented no problem for his suction grips. A check of the chrono showed that he was well ahead of schedule. The chute executed a few gradual twists and turns—nothing he couldn’t negotiate—before light became visible at the terminus. The sight was a relief. Though Chaloni had assured him that his prep work had shown that reduction operations at the facility took place only during the day, the thought of being confronted by a suddenly activated incinerator at the end of the crawl was one Subar had not been able to push out of his mind.

He emerged into a well-lit holding area near the rear of the building. Used packaging and other detritus was stacked on all sides of the reducer bed. Climbing out of it, he removed his mask and goggles, took a couple of deep breaths, and headed for the center of the structure. That was where any manual override for the building’s various alarm systems would be located.

Sure enough, a short jog carried him through a doorless portal and out into a much larger, three-story chamber. To his immediate left was a small, illuminated room. Inside were lit panels, floating vits, a couple of chairs, and several appliances. The room was unoccupied. That was not good. Keeping a security room lit throughout the night suggested that it was intended to be attended by something other than automatics.

As he turned to check behind him, he found a particularly large nonautomatic frowning down at him.

“Kid, what the borizone are you doing here?” The make of gun the man held pointed right at Subar’s chest was unfamiliar to him. Like its owner, it was impressively large.

Subar did not panic. He did not try to flee. Instead, he raised both hands, one holding mask and goggles, and smiled. “What’s your name?”

The man’s frown turned to one of puzzlement. “My name? What the hell business is that of yours?”

Subar affected a look of honest bemusement. “Don’t you want credit?”

“Credit?” Anger and uncertainty fought for dominance within the night guard’s thoughts. “Credit for what?”

“For doing your job. For catching me.” Subar gestured behind him, toward the open portal that led back to the refuse disposal chamber. “Could have been a few minutes quicker, but still pretty good.”

‘What’s this credit crola? What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out.” Subar’s grin widened. “Take me to your leader, Mr., uh…?”

The man hesitated, decided he had nothing to lose by replying. “Harani. Quevar Harani.”

When the now uncertain guard didn’t move, Subar took the initiative, heading for the waiting security room. “Congratulations, Mr. Harani, and thanks for the name. I hate it when people who deserve credit for their work don’t receive it. Don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Thoroughly bemused by now, Harani fell in behind the youthful intruder he had captured. The guard’s weapon did not waver and the muzzle of his weapon remained fixed on Subar’s spine, but his thoughts as he escorted his catch toward Central were considerably more muddled than usual.

Boujon would sort it out, he decided. Meanwhile, he had tracked the intruder via the external and wall sensors and had taken him into custody. That was all the credit he needed, he felt. Unless…

Unless there was something more to be gained. Something he knew nothing about. The youthful, skinny intruder had given him no trouble, and had allowed himself to be effortlessly apprehended. What he had managed to do was plant a seed in Harani’s mind. Not of doubt but, just perhaps, of expectation.

Zezula entered the building through an upper-level vent whose seal yielded easily to the special reliever she carried, and whose built-in sensor alarm was disarmed in seconds by the burglary tool Chaloni had provided. It was a tight squeeze, but the shiny silver suit she wore was tight fitting enough not only to show off her exemplary figure, but also to allow her to wriggle her way freely downward. Using hands and feet and knees to apply pressure to the sides of the cylindrical tube, she made steady progress.

The drop to the second-floor landing that ran around the interior circumference of the building was less than what she was used to dealing with when fleeing across the rooftops of the city. Landing quietly on padded feet, she stayed low as she searched for a lift or ladder leading to the floor. The interior of the warehouse was equipped with motion detectors designed to sense movement where all should be still, heat sensors to locate heat where none should be radiating, and listening devices to record and analyze sound where silence ought to reign.

Just as appliances were available to cancel out unwanted noise, so Zezula’s suit was equipped with activated fabric that was designed to absorb the beams of motion detectors. They did not see her. The suit’s special outer coating was fabricated to completely hide her body’s heat signature. Continuously monitoring the landing along which she was running, the plethora of advanced instruments noted nothing out of the ordinary. Cushioned, sound-absorbing slippers not only allowed her to move swiftly and easily, but also eliminated even the slightest hint of footfall from her path.

Reaching a ladder well, she checked below. There was no sign of movement. Except for some far-off chatter, all was silent in the vast chamber. In the distance she thought she could make out Subar’s high-pitched singsong rising among other voices. Good. That meant the youngest member of the gang had safely made his way inside. She felt sorry for Subar, always gawking at her whenever he thought she couldn’t see him. He would have made an interesting kid brother, though his interest in her was transparently anything but filial. Sometimes she had to force herself to keep from laughing at him. His interest would have been pitiable, if she had any pity in her body, which she did not. Though he had no way of knowing it, she was doing him a kindness by ignoring him.

Making made her way down the ladder as quickly and efficiently as she had across the landing, she started for the nearest row of stacked and shelved merchandise. While the nature of some goods remained hidden within opaque packaging, the contents of others were clearly visible through the transparent coatings that had been applied to protect them. She wished she had time to linger over some of the inventory. Much of it was legitimate and familiar even to someone who was not exactly a sophisticated buyer. Some of it was exotic but not particularly exclusive.

Then there were the objects from Earth.

Even a casual visitor could have picked these out. There was the collection of twenty-second-century long arms, for example, with their simple clips of gunpowder-driven projectiles. Less physically impressive but far more ornate was the sealpak containing eighteenth-and nineteenth-century glassware. Nearby stood a translucent container through which life-sized marble carvings boosted from some ancient Terran temple were visible. An entire mounted saber-toothed cat fossil shared spare with an assortment of intact twentieth-century fast-food containers made from, astonishingly enough, not plastic or cellucene but actual treeboard. Even a quick glance at the shelves was enough to show that there was more, much more. The value of the smuggled Terran items she was seeing was beyond her ability to calculate.

Chal was right. This would put them in serious cred not for months but for years. Disposing of it would be no problem, either. Where there was this kind of cred to be totaled, there was always someone willing to take the chance of handling the marketing end of the business.

She turned right and headed for the back of the building. That was where the automatics that governed the internal alarms and power supply would be located. She was halfway to her destination when a voice hissed at her from the shadows.

“Stop. Do not move. Keep your hands high where they can be seen.”

The command came from a peculiar voice. Not only the pronunciation of individual words was strained, but the cadence was peculiar as well. Someone from the other side of Visaria, she decided, where accents tended to be thicker. Or else the speaker was an offworlder. No linguist, she couldn’t decide.

She could, however, recognize a life-threatening order when she heard one. Extending both arms, she thrust her hands over her head.

The figure that approached her was also wearing a techsuit, one as loose fitting as hers was tight. Oversized boots and a helmet with wraparound reflective face shield completed the speaker’s attire. There was nothing unusual about the pistol pointed at her, however. Letting out a tired sigh, she smiled thinly at her captor.

“Very good. You got me.”

There was a pause. “‘Very good’? I am confused. That should be my feeling, not yours.” The voice was oddly stilted, as if it was being filtered through a miniaturized but effective real-time modulator.

“Not necessarily. You’ll understand in a little while.”

One hand gestured. Rather elaborately, she thought. “I hope so. My momentary confusion, however, will not prevent me from shooting you if you attempt to flee, or otherwise provoke me.”

She nodded. “I’ll be sure to be careful, then.”

Without lowering the muzzle of the pistol so much as a millimeter, the figure backed off to one side. The slightly bent-over guard walked with an odd, shuffling motion. A relic of back damage incurred in the course of duty, perhaps. While these idiosyncrasies attracted her notice, they were nothing out of the ordinary. Irrespective of pay, she imagined it would be hard to sign the best people for a job like nocturnal guard duty. But a man or woman bent or otherwise disfigured by disease, damage, or individual genetics might jump at the chance to work where they didn’t have to interact with other people. She kept her hands over her head and her eyes forward as her captor marched her toward a well-lit chamber located near the center rear of the building.

Having observed Zezula’s capture via one of the warehouse’s dozens of carefully concealed surveillance vits, Boujon was waiting for them in the security center. Short, experienced, muscular, and proud of his competence, with a deeply lined face and what remained of his white hair standing straight up in a buzz cut severe enough to double as sandpaper, he was a troubled man.

The two young, well-equipped, would-be scrim artists standing before him with their wrists now secured behind their backs had entered the premises whose space and contents he was charged with holding inviolable. Even if they were ignorant of who was behind Goalaa Endeavors and felt the worst that could happen to them was that they would be turned over to municipal authorities, they ought at the very least to be showing signs of apprehension. Instead, the older girl wore an air of indifference as lightly as she did her negsuit, while the younger boy seemed impatient when he should have been nervous. It made no sense. It did not add up. Being a man who was proud of his ability to do sums, this disturbed Boujon no end. It found him concerned. It was beginning to make him mad.

“There’s something the matter with you two.” His gaze flicked back and forth between them. “Namely, that there’s nothing the matter with you two.”

“Should there be?” the boy replied. Apparently, the girl’s indifference extended to engaging in conversation. That, Boujon reflected grimly, could be easily rectified. For the moment, however, he was content to converse with only the junior of the pair.

“Yes,” the building’s director of nighttime security assured him. “At the very least both of you should be uneasy, not knowing what might be forthcoming and ignorant of your possible fate. Your future lies in the hands of someone other than yourselves. Me.”

“Well, tnure,” the girl deigned to reply casually.

Boujon glared at her. “Are you mocking me, you little slipslut? How about if I tell Harani to break a couple of your fingers?” Standing immediately behind the two captives and next to the bent-over shuffler in mask and loosesuit, Harani looked as if he would not especially mind carrying out such a directive. While Boujon’s threat did not appear to unsettle its subject, it did prompt the bound boy to take a half step forward.

“Everything will be explained real soon,” Subar hastily assured the security director. “You’ve done well so far.”

“I’ve done…?” Boujon’s eyebrows, which were as white as the rest of his hair, drew together in a melanin-free frown. “What the stasis are you talking about? What is this—some kind of suicidal school project? Do you expect to be graded on whether or not you’ve managed to boost the property of another? If you think this is a game of some kind, maybe I should have Harani start with your fingers, kid. ‘Real soon’?” He half rose out of his chair. “If you’ve anything else to say before I decide how to deal with the both of you, you’d better say it now.” He did not smile. “While you’re still in possession of the necessary speaking equipment.”

Inside, Subar had begun to panic, just a little. Then a couple of audible alarms went off and he was able to relax again.

Harani looked at his superior, who had turned to stare at a bank of floating control contacts. A pair of cornea-sized telltales had gone bright red. The soft beep of their aural counterparts filled the room. The sound was not overpowering: merely insistent.

Now what?” a thoroughly irritated Boujon demanded of unresponsive listeners.

Harani spoke up helpfully. “Autorive delivery has gone into lockdown.”

Boujon growled without turning. “I can see that, idiot. Go and check it out. No,” he corrected himself quickly. “Stay here. You and Joh keep an eye on these two. Either of them tries to fiddle their bindings, blinks too much, or raises their voice, acquaint them with the inflexibility of the nearest wall.”

Harani stiffened. “Yes sir, Mr. Boujon, sir.” Nearby, the masked operative called Joh continued to hold a pistol focused on both captives.

Holstering his own pair of weapons—one an efficient restrainer, the other lethal—Boujon exited the office as soon as the armor door slid aside. He headed for the cargo receiving area that dominated the south end of the warehouse. What a night it was turning out to be! He needed time to determine the intentions of the two youths who had penetrated outer security only to be detained once they had made their way inside. Each had infiltrated wearing professional-grade equipment, apparently believing that would be enough to prevent their detection. Which meant they were either arrogant or just plain stupid. Not being old enough to have acquired much experience in the way of breaking and entering, they were apparently relying on their high-tech but far-from-omnipotent gear to see them safely through to their eventual goal. He assumed that to be theft.

He had considered calling for backup, but had quickly set the notion aside. First, because it would reflect badly on his abilities and second, because there was no evident need for additional help. Harani and Joh had secured their respective detainees with little effort and no resistance. It was a poorly organized supervisor who called for help before he needed it.

Were the youthful intruders aware of the secrets the warehouse contained? How far did their ignorance, or arrogance, extend? These were questions that needed answers. He would have them before the sun started to warm the urban haze. But first, the early-morning delivery that had gone into lockdown had to be attended to.

The transport remained where automatic detectors had secured it: near the entrance, with the main door shut tight in its wake and appropriate weaponry aimed in the vehicle’s direction. The autorive had, of course, no driver. This was the preferred method of delivery. Having no live driver meant there was no one on the transport in a position to pilfer its contents or divert the valuable cargo elsewhere. It was essentially an automated sybfile on wheels. Skimmer transport would have been faster, but skimmers required the presence of a live pilot to deal with the frenetic traffic lanes of the city.

Facing the transport, whose power had been shut down by building security, he saw nothing amiss. There was no one in the programming and emergency control cockpit, and the vehicle appeared undamaged except for the usual urban dings and scratches. Pulling his communit, he queried the warehouse’s AI.

“One-one-four, access code Blue thirty.”

“Code accepted. Please proceed, Mr. Boujon.”

“Transport arrival noted. Detail reason for security lockdown.”

“Manifest lists thirty-seven containers marked for delivery. Penetration scan shows thirty-eight containers. Resonance follow-up indicates one container of dimensions three by two by two contains an oxygen-breathing life-form of dimensions—”

“Skip it,” Boujon told the AI. With a sigh he drew his retainer, leaving the killing gun in its holster. Given the direction this morning had taken so far, he had more than an inkling of what he was going to find. “Direct transport to unseal and open for delivery.”

Following commands communicated by the building’s AI, the rear of the transport swung down to become a loading ramp. Approaching, the retainer held out in front of him, Boujon ascended halfway before making a casual gesture in the direction of the transport’s container-filled interior.

“All right, you can come on out now.” When no movement was forthcoming, he added impatiently, “Your container has been scanned and your presence detected. You have sixty seconds to come out or I’ll shoot into the container holding you.”

The satisfying sound of seals popping echoed softly through the transport’s interior. The figure that climbed out of one oblong container was wearing a recycler mask attached to a tiny bottle of compressed atmosphere. It was only when the intruder responded to Boujon’s crisp order to remove it that the security director saw that the latest interloper was as young as his two predecessors, albeit much larger.

Backing down the ramp, Boujon pointed with the retainer as he gave the newcomer plenty of room. He was a big kid, but clearly still a kid.

“Let’s go, boy.”

“Yes sir.” Sallow Behdul hesitated. “Uh, you want me to put my hands over my head?”

“Sure.” If he hadn’t been so annoyed by the night’s goings-on, Boujon might have smiled. “Knock yourself out.”

After running a hand-scanner over the oversized youth to check for weapons and finding none, Boujon marched his captive back to security central. One more intruder meant at least one more question. He looked around, studying the high walls and ceiling of the warehouse. Was this going to go on all night? He did not worry about what to do with his (so far) trio of captives. Their eventual fate could, conveniently, be left to a higher authority. What he was looking forward to was an explanation.

One thing he had already decided. The would-be thieves were not wholly unintelligent. Plainly, if the first two failed in their attempts to successfully penetrate building security, it would have been left to this last lummox to hide in his sealed shipping container until all was quiet and then emerge to hopefully make off with a valuable or two. Whoever had planned this intrusion apparently thought of their troops as expendable. That, at least, did make some sense. If one was going to send a couple of advance scouts on a suicide mission, nothing was more natural than to sacrifice the young, inexperienced, and ignorant.

If that was the intent, it had failed miserably. Did whoever was behind the break-in attempt think the owners of Goalaa were ignorant of modern theft techniques, and unprepared for such? A little judicious questioning of one or more of the three captives would reveal who was behind the futile, failed effort. Unless, of course, the trio had been thoughtfully mindwiped of that bit of incriminating knowledge before being sent on their way. Given what he had seen thus far, Boujon was not willing to credit the perpetrators with even that much critical foresight.

Still, one never knew unless one asked. Harani and possibly even Joh might be looking forward to the necessary inquisition, but the security director was not. Harsh questioning was ofttimes unpleasant and sometimes messy work, it was nearing the end of his shift, and given the peculiarities of this night he was more than ready to go home and flop into bed.

With all the activity in the building focused on security central, the rear of the cavernous structure was dark and quiet. That suited Chaloni just fine. As he descended the emergency ladder and tiptoed along the floor toward his destination, the night-vision lenses he wore allowed him to see in the dim and shadowy light as clearly as if it were noon. Impressively impregnated and specially woven, the chameleon suit that covered him from head to toe was fabricated not only to blend in with the color of its immediate surroundings but to bend any type of sensing radiation around its wearer.

Like the structures that surrounded it, the warehouse was hooked into the municipal power grid. On this moonless, cloudy night, turning off the electrical supply to the building should plunge it into immediate darkness. That, however, would be both too easy and too obvious. To properly render the structure’s watchmen blind and ignorant, the same negation needed to be applied to the inevitable individually powered emergency backups.

Both necessary feats were to be accomplished by the special device he carried in the backpack he wore beneath the chameleon suit. Plugged into the building’s power panel, it would not only disrupt the main supply to the structure but also send out enough homing radiation to quietly fry every electrical connection within. That in itself would, of course, alert any guards to the fact that something was amiss, but by the time they localized the trouble, he should be in and out with an armful of goods.

He needed to move fast and choose wisely. Though the distinctive gear and clothing he and his companions were utilizing was only rented, he had still been forced to borrow against earnings in order to pay the fee. As to the others, ways and means of springing them from the clutches of the building’s supervisors were already in place. He grinned to himself. Backup, he had learned early on in his life on the streets of Malandere, was always the first part of a job to be worked out, not the last.

He was sure they had, all three of them, already been picked up. That was the intention all along. Send in the troops one at a time, each utilizing a different approach, to keep the building’s operators preoccupied both physically and mentally. Now it was his turn. Through the night lenses he could see the power panel directly ahead, attached to the far wall behind a protective metal grid. A sensor built into the lenses indicated that the grid was not charged. Locked, yes, but that would delay him only until he could get at the tools in his backpack.

He had removed the necessary pair of small, efficient devices and set to work when a cool voice called to him from behind.

“All right, that’s enough. Lie down on the floor, legs spread, hands out in front of you and over your head.” A pause, then, “I can’t see you perfectly yet, so I’d just have to spray the whole area to be sure of hitting you, and I don’t want to have my pay docked for damage to walls.” He started to look behind him. The voice sounded again, more sharply this time. “Don’t turn around! I’d as soon shoot you as talk. Maybe rather.”

Taking a deep breath, Chaloni did as he had been directed, dropping prone to his belly and spreading his limbs. A hand was on him almost immediately, checking for weapons. Finding none, the strong fingers pulled off his night lenses and tugged back the hood of the chameleon suit to reveal his face.

“Stand up,” she told him. He complied. The woman facing him and cradling the stubby, widemouthed weapon in both arms was short and squat. She wore her hair cut short beneath a service cap, and her duty blouse was bedecked with tubes and instrumentation. Her eyes were a fashionable, and startlingly bright, orange. She eyed him up and down.

“Same as the others, maybe a little older. Turn around.” Offering no resistance, he stood calmly while she placed wrist restraints on him. He could feel the slight burst of heat as the synthetic protein bonds melted into place. “Okay,” she told him, “let’s go.”

As they marched off in the direction of building security, he couldn’t keep from inquiring, “How did you spot me? I should have been completely blanked.”

“You were,” she assured him. “No tracking echo, no viz, no heat signature, nothing.” Though he couldn’t see her fiddling with the relevant instrument, he did not need to. “Carbon dioxide emission. Moving fast, you were exhaling enough to fog the sensor screen, even at a distance. D’you think the people who run this place are scrawn-spawn? Even the portable I’m using is sensitive enough to pick up the breath of intruding mice.”

Intriguing, he mused. He hadn’t thought of that one; nor had the people from whom he had rented all the infiltration gear mentioned the possibility. Life was a series of learned experiences, he told himself.

Taking his calm for resignation, his captor allowed herself to relax slightly. “I don’t figure this. None of us do, including Mr. Boujon. I mean, what were you kids thinking, trying to break in here? If you have any idea what’s sometimes stored in this facility, didn’t you think it would be properly looked after? Do you have an idea who really owns and runs this operation?”

“No,” Chaloni told her honestly. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Not my place to opt,” she replied brusquely. “How much you get to know is up to Mr. Boujon.” He could not see her grin, but he could sense it in her tone. “That, and what happens to you and your friends. Me, I hope he leaves the close-in work up to the hourly help. Nothing to do night after night, it gets real boring around here. Maybe I ought to thank you for the distraction. Harani and I, we get real lethargic sometimes.”

“Glad to be of help,” Chaloni told her.

Something hard and unyielding jabbed him solidly in the back, causing him to stumble slightly forward. The grin, both physical and verbal, had vanished. “You think this is funny, you little street scrug? You making fun of me? Wait till Harani’s let loose on you. The big guy, he’s got hands like a doctor. A mad one.” The smile returned, more than a little twisted this time. “And I get to play his favorite nurse.”